This is the Way the World Ends
by Simoun Sibylla
Summary: An homage to Soldier Blue and the lives he changed, in several vignettes featuring Harley, Blue, Jomy, and Physis. Inspired by the poem "The Hollow Men."
1. Chapter 1: Harley

_**This is the Way the World Ends**_

By Simoun Sibylla

Disclaimer: The bold-italicized bits of poetry are excerpts from T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men". _Toward the Terra _and all its characters belong to Takemiya Keiko. I am merely borrowing the poem to play with the _TtT _characters a bit.

Note: This story will have 5 chapters, so please stay tuned for more! I'll be jumping around in time and changing characters, but for now we start with a very young Harley, before the Mu escaped from Altamira.

Warnings: Spoilers for the anime, plus death, physical torment, and extensive angst.

* * *

**I**

_**We are the hollow men  
We are the stuffed men  
Leaning together  
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!  
Our dried voices, when  
We whisper together  
Are quiet and meaningless  
As wind in dry grass  
Or rats' feet over broken glass  
In our dry cellar**_

Harley awoke with a start when the door to his cell opened. A beam of blinding light shot into his face. Tears stinging his eyes, he raised an arm to block the glare of the light. How long had it been since he had last seen anything but the darkness of his cramped, coffin-like cell?

A draft of cold, dry air rushed in, followed by two pairs of white-gloved hands that grabbed his ankles, tugging him forward.

"Hey!" he shouted, kicking at them, but the hands only tightened their grip and yanked him forward. Harley fell onto his back, hitting his head on the floor as he was dragged roughly towards the door. His hands found no purchase on the smooth walls and floor, and then abruptly the floor gave way to nothingness.

Harley tumbled out of his tiny holding cell in the wall and crashed down onto the hard, cold floor of the wide room beyond it. The fall knocked the breath from his lungs. Sitting in a crumpled pile, he painfully gulped for air and managed to inhale only after a few desperate tries.

"Specimen 2, Type Green—check," said a male voice.

Harley looked up and saw two men in long, white coats, with white gloves and white hats. They wore white masks to cover their faces, as though the stale air in the chilly room could contaminate them.

"Get up," one of the men ordered.

Harley stared up at them, heart pounding. _Blue_, he thought, wondering if his friend could hear him. _Are you there, Blue? They're taking me away._

_Ah, I hear you, Harley. _There was a pause. _Be strong._

A chorus of echoing voices joined Blue's almost immediately: _Be strong. Be strong. _

Those two words were their mantra, their greeting, the only comfort left to them, as strange children trapped in this facility.

_You, too, _said Harley to all of them, and then the men yanked him to his feet. His weak legs nearly gave out beneath him. His cell was too small for him to stand up, and he couldn't remember the last time he had been allowed to walk outside.

But the men had no patience for his weakness; they gripped him under the arms and hauled him out of the room.

Harley's bare feet stumbled over the cold floor as they half-dragged him down a long corridor. The sight of the metal double door at the end of the hall filled him with intense horror, and a cold sweat broke out over his skin. He knew where they were taking him.

He was going to the dreaded examination room where the adults ran their cruel experiments.

He could hear someone screaming inside, even though the soundproof door was still shut. The telepathically projected terror sounded in his head and bounced around his skull until he could hear nothing else, not even the gruff commands of the men telling him not to drag his feet so much.

_**Shape without form, shade without colour,  
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;**_

They carried him through the doors into the red-lit room, where the giant, torture machine stood. Now audible cries reached Harley's ears and became indistinguishable from the voice wailing in his head.

He saw a child wearing the same gray pants and shirt as himself, strapped flat to the terrible torture device's base. The metal arch of the machine curved above the child like a scythe, poised to carve into delicate flesh.

The child's head was almost completely covered by a wired helmet, but two red braids peeked out from the bottom. Harley's eyes widened; he knew now to whom the voice in his head belonged.

"Morgan!" Her name escaped his dry throat with a rasp, but in his head, his voice remained strong enough for her to hear.

The helmet turned on the table to face him. The lights of the examination device danced like crazed eyes across its gleaming surface. Over her anguished screams, her thoughts came into his mind in a soft, pained whisper: _Harley. Help me._

"We've brought the next specimen," said one of the men beside him.

"Good, set it down over there. We'll be done with this one in a minute," said a woman clothed in a white lab coat, though she did not wear a hat or a mask like the others. She ran her fingers over a computer console in front of her, apparently controlling the dreadful machine dominating the room.

Harley saw her hair was red, too. For a split second, he wondered whether it was Morgan who stood behind the computer, asking him to help her torture the adults, but then he knew that could never be the case.

The two men roughly pulled his arms behind him. With the click of a lock, Harley knew he was inescapably fastened to the wall. He sank to his knees. He would not waste his energy standing when he did not know what kind of torment these people had planned for him.

Blue's voice echoed in his head: _Be strong. Be strong._

He watched Morgan's small body twitch and spasm on the machine. How he wanted the red-haired researcher to change places with this girl, to put the adult at the mercy of her own terrible device, to fill that woman's head with the blinding, deafening pain she inflicted on the children—

_Harley!_

He winced at the sound of Morgan's voice; it felt like it was burning into his head like a hot iron.

But then the voice ceased abruptly. He looked up and saw her body flailing in a violent seizure, her face still hidden beneath the heavy helmet. _Morgan! _he called out to her mentally. _Be strong! _ But then he had to shut his eyes and turn his head away; he could not bear the sight of his friend being tortured so severely.

But in the pulsing blackness behind his eyelids, he saw a pale figure take form. It was Morgan, freed from her restraints and no longer wearing her helmet. Her back was towards him. Her braids had come undone, and her hair hung freely about her shoulders. The coppery-red waves brushed against the loose gray fabric of her shirt.

He reached one hand towards her and was startled to see a green glow emanating from his own palm.

Morgan looked at him over her shoulder, then turned and ran to him. A moment later her outstretched hand grabbed his, pale fingers intertwining with his darker ones. The green light spread from his hand to hers and enveloped her entire body.

She let out a sigh. _I knew you'd help me, Harley,_ she said. A strangely warm wind began to blow around them. She closed her eyes and smiled. _It doesn't hurt anymore._

The wind picked up, tugging at Morgan and pulling her away. Harley raised his other hand to try to hold Morgan steady, but a flash of red lightning tore across the blackness, blinding him. He felt her hand slide out of his grip. _No! Morgan! _He scrambled blindly forward, but a violent gust of wind threw him back.

Suddenly his eyes flew open and he found himself still on his knees on the floor of the lab, with his hands tightly chained behind him. Breathing heavily, he turned his eyes to the giant machine in the center of the room and saw Morgan lying limp on the table, still strapped down and with the helmet on her head.

"Confirmed brain death at level 250; female, type Green, age 13," observed the red-haired woman. Two assistants appeared out of the shadows and began to undo the restraints that bound Morgan's limbs. "The green ones seem to last until roughly 240, 245, on average, it seems," mused the woman. "This one lasted longer than I expected, though. Get the next one ready."

Her words froze Harley's blood in his veins. He knew with complete certainty that he would be killed now. They would all be killed, one by one, in a final, crazed experiment.

And then he would be gone, like Morgan.

The female researcher approached him, blocking his view of Morgan, and pulled up his chin. He shivered at her touch.

"What's wrong with this one?" she asked, then shone a light in his eyes and scanned him with a small hand-held device. "Fever. Infection." She turned to the men who had brought him in. "I can't test the limits of the Mu with a sick specimen!" she yelled. "Throw this one back in its cage and get me a new one!"

The men obediently came to unfasten him from the wall, then roughly pulled him back to his feet. The touch of their hands disgusted him. A cold, hard rage born form his grief and his powerlessness rushed through him, and a green shield flared up around him, repelling the men with an electric crackle. He would not let them touch him again, would not let them kill him like all the others, would not let them kill anymore of his friends—

Then out of nowhere something stabbed him in the back of his neck. He reached back and found a needle jabbed into his skin. "No!" he gasped, but already he could feel the power draining from his limbs.

"I knew something was wrong with this one," muttered the woman, putting her tranquilizer gun back into a holster hidden beneath her white coat.

Harley fell to the floor again, all strength sapped from his muscles. His eyes grew heavy as a thick, nauseating darkness crept over his mind. He felt himself slowly dragged across the floor, but was unable to move so much as a finger.

As the men pulled him towards the door, he caught a glimpse of a lab assistant putting Morgan's corpse into a black body bag. Her green eyes were wide open, frozen in death. He could not see what her gaze was fixed upon, but he knew instinctively that he, too, would find it someday, whatever it was.

_**Those who have crossed  
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom  
Remember us—if at all—not as lost  
Violent souls, but only  
As the hollow men  
The stuffed men.**_

He heard the woman in the lab coat mutter, "Hurry up and get that thing out of here."

Then they dragged him over the threshold, and unconsciousness took him.

* * *

Author's note: Gah, I keep writing oddly violent Mu torture scenes. ;_; But I think the trauma they all underwent can't be understated.

In my head, after Harley gets thrown back in his cell, he somehow communicates with the others that the humans are now systemmatically killing them off, and thus the seeds of their rebellion and escape are planted.


	2. Chapter 2: Blue

**II**

_**Eyes I dare not meet in dreams  
In death's dream kingdom  
These do not appear:  
There, the eyes are  
Sunlight on a broken column  
There, is a tree swinging  
And voices are  
In the wind's singing  
More distant and more solemn  
Than a fading star.**_

Physis was singing. Alfred stood beside her, strumming a delicate accompaniment on his harp. Blue sat before them, resting one arm on the table next to him and quietly tapping one foot in time with the music.

Physis's voice was high and clear, with a certain warmth that never failed to captivate him. Her blind eyes were closed, but a gentle smile graced her lips. Her hands moved delicately through the air, and the golden hoops dangling from her wrists clinked together softly, punctuating the melody. Her long, blond hair framed her face like a veil and trailed down onto the marble floor to merge with the folds of her lavender dress.

Blue cared not what lyrics she sang, so long as she allowed him to sit here and lose himself in the spell of her presence.

The Humans had called her a witch, but they never knew what great magic this woman wielded, with her power to soothe the heart of an old, old warrior.

Finally, the last tremulous note of the final song faded. Reluctant to arise from his reverie, Blue gazed at her from his seat. She clasped her hands and smiled at him expectantly. Only then did he rise to his feet and bring his hands together in slow applause.

"Beautiful, as always, my goddess," he said. He took her hand in his and planted a light kiss on it.

"Thank you, Soldier," she replied. "It was my pleasure."

"No," he insisted, holding her hand. "It was all mine."

Behind her, Alfred bowed respectfully, then discreetly withdrew.

Blue waited a moment longer to make sure they were really alone, then guided Physis back to her chair.

"You still seem restless, Soldier Blue," commented Physis as she sat down. "What continues to weigh on your mind so?"

Blue returned to his seat in silence. He wanted to tell her of what he had found, what had sparked this flicker of hope greater than anything he had felt since he awoke to Physis's dream of Terra. He wanted to confess his nervousness, his excitement, his anxiety, his fear—but doing so would also reveal the disappointment he harbored towards his previous experiment.

Therefore, he withdrew into himself, as he had done all these years, to protect her from the truth.

When he first found Physis, so many years ago, she had been but an innocent child. But she carried in her a powerful dream that had given him a new purpose in life. In gratitude, he had planted in her a fragment of his own power, shaped her in his image, and made her into a Mu, so that he could find her again, no matter what the Humans did to her.

When the time came, he sealed away her unpleasant memories and brought her to the Mu ship to begin a new life. He wanted her to stay at his side, and then, one day, after he revealed the truth of her origins to her, she would take his place and lead his people to peace with the Humans.

He wanted her to be like a mother goddess reuniting her lost children, Human and Mu.

At least, that was what he had planned for a long time.

But Physis had refused to accept the destiny he secretly desired for her. She did not know of his plans or his meddling in her early life, but sometimes it seemed as though she were gently, kindly, and most respectfully rejecting the role he had envisioned for her.

Physis had her own visions, and she would not ignore them, even for his sake.

"Nothing's on my mind," he answered at last, concealing his thoughts from her. He kept his voice even, and his mind behind a shield of calm. The deception came with practiced ease, but his duplicity shamed him. He loathed himself for ever feeling the slightest disappointment for his failure to turn Physis into what he wanted her to be. After all, she had become a wonderful woman who had given more to the Mu—and to him—than most others ever had.

He could not bear for her to learn of his failings—there were so many of them.

But more than his hidden disappointment, more than anything else in the world, he was terrified that she would notice the new, unnerving premonition that stirred inside him. It had sprung into being the moment he had found the boy who promised to be the greatest Mu ever to be born.

But the brighter the flame of Blue's newfound hope glowed, the greater the shadow it cast across his heart.

Blue was dying, and he knew it. Still, he would cling to the dreams and visions he had of the still nameless boy that reignited emotions Blue long thought dead. His hope would have to sustain him until the final hour, until the moment of reckoning that approached far too swiftly.

_**Let me be no nearer  
In death's dream kingdom  
Let me also wear  
Such deliberate disguises  
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves  
In a field  
Behaving as the wind behaves  
No nearer—**_

Physis took out her tarot deck and began to shuffle the cards quietly in her hands.

Blue did not want to die yet, but he could feel a heavy finality in his bones. His own cells seemed to vibrate with the tense certainty of their impending end.

There was simply no other way to explain the child's existence. In all his lost centuries of wandering, Blue had never found another person whose soul shone the same color as his, until now. It was clear that the infant he had found in Ataraxia would one day relieve Blue of the burdens of his life.

Physis slowly began to lay out her tarot cards on the table top.

Blue wanted to see the child, to learn the boy's name, to speak with him and share with him everything he knew. To him, he would entrust Physis's secret; to him, he would impart his dreams. But for now, he would have to keep his distance from the boy to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. He would not interfere unnecessarily in the life of the child that bore all his hopes.

He would let nature take its course—this time.

He could not tell Physis anything.

He wondered, though, if after he died, the part of him that lived in Physis's heart would stay in this world. Perhaps he could watch over the Mu through her eyes, and guide his successor with her hands.

She put the deck of the remaining cards on the table. Before her lay a spread of only three cards, lined up in a row. She leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap.

"What do you see, Physis?" he asked, curiosity aroused. He had not asked for a reading.

"The cards speak to me on your behalf," she answered, reprimanding him ever so slightly for his silence. She picked up the middle card and handed it to him.

The card depicted a scowling man standing in a field. He leaned heavily on his wooden stave; behind him stood a fence made of eight other staves.

"He doesn't look too happy," said Blue lightly as he examined the card. Even after all these years of watching Physis, he still could not figure out how she read anything from these cryptic cards.

"No. He is tired, wary, and guarded, fearing the worst from everyone and everything."

Blue put the card back down, slightly unnerved by the implication.

Physis pointed to the first card, which showed a disembodied hand holding a single, giant stave. "This is the dream he once had—a dream he dared to chase, a possibility for which he gave everything he could." She brushed her fingertips back over the center card depicting the weary man fenced in by his own staves. "Now, he is stuck. He cannot forget the past, and he mistrusts the future."

Blue stared at Physis as she spoke, then placed his hand over hers, on top of the card. He wanted to stop her from reading the third card. He did not want to hear more—he did not want her to know any more than she already did.

She turned her hand beneath his to take hold of his hand. _Won't you tell me what troubles you, Soldier? _she asked telepathically. _Perhaps I could be of use to you._

He squeezed her hand slightly and shook his head.

"Shall I finish the reading?"

"I fear the fate awaiting this grumpy old man," he admitted.

Physis smiled at him. "But there is nothing to fear." Before he could protest, she picked up the third card. "The Six of Cups—it shows that he must clear his conscience and shed the bitterness he carries. He must free himself to enjoy the goodness of life. Only then can he fulfill his noble purpose."

One of Blue's fingers twitched, but he managed to keep his surprise to himself otherwise.

"I can't quite make out what it is exactly," she continued, "but I can feel the potential for a new birth, for a great blessing—for contentment and love." She touched the middle card again. "See how strong the man is—he is injured but still standing. He still has the power to change his world."

_**Not that final meeting  
In the twilight kingdom**_

Blue felt his chest tighten. He bowed his head and clasped her hand in both of his. "Physis," he whispered, as his guilt unexpectedly hit him clearly knew much of what he had tried to hide, and knew far more than he wanted her to. But she knew everything because of the power he had planted inside her, many decades ago in the watery tank in which she had been born.

"Soldier?"

_You know me better than I know myself. _But no matter how much she knew, no matter how obvious his lies and deceptions were, he could not hurt her with the knowledge of his own unpleasant future.

Not yet.

"I will tell you more when the time is right," he said aloud, raising his head and letting go of her hand.

She rose from her seat and moved to stand behind his chair. Then she leaned forward and draped her arms around him from behind, her face pressed against the top of his head. Her long, golden hair fell around him like a shimmering curtain as she hugged him.

"Soldier," she said softly, and added, _I am beside you always. No matter what. _Her thoughts were warm, like sunlight over a field of fragrant flowers.

"Yes," he murmured, leaning back slowly in his chair. _Always._

* * *

Author's note: I hope this chapter made sense. My theory is that Blue gave Physis her Mu powers when he found her, or that he somehow used his powers to strengthen her abilities. I also think that in the beginning, he might've wanted her to be a more prominent leader, based on her unique abilities, but eventually he came to accept the role she chose for herself as the oracle of the Mu. And then he felt kind of terrible about his whole selfish plan, which is why when he found Jomy, he put so much emphasis on letting Jomy have a normal childhood before becoming leader.

Those are just my thoughts. I'd love to hear what other people's theories are.

Oh, and as for the tarot cards—those are the actual cards I got when I did a reading for this story! They seemed to fit perfectly, though. :)


	3. Chapter 3: Jomy

**III**

_**This is the dead land  
This is cactus land  
Here the stone images  
Are raised, here they receive  
The supplication of a dead man's hand  
Under the twinkle of a fading star.**_

Yui was dead. His body now lay beneath the red soil of Nazca.

After the funeral, Jomy lingered by the grave, alone. The ever-present wind blew red dust over the the pale pink flowers placed before the tombstone. The twin suns drifted slowly towards the horizon.

Yui had been so young—younger than Jomy.

There had been deaths before. Their flight from the Humans had not been without cost. But this was the first time they had lost one of the children who had welcomed Jomy to the ship when he been but a child himself.

He had wanted those children to be happy here, on this strange red planet, but instead they had found grief.

Jomy turned and began to walk away, with the wind at his back and the dusk deepening around him. His boots crunched over the gritty dirt as he strode toward the ruins left by the Humans who had first colonized this place nearly two centuries ago. Some of the abandoned buildings were still standing, but many had collapsed and were slowly being swallowed by the encroaching sand dunes.

He made his way past a crumbling white wall and came across an old gazebo. Half of its roof had fallen in, but otherwise it appeared to be intact. He stopped and looked around at the ruins in the twilight. The last light of the setting suns glinted off shards of glass scattered about his feet.

He realized this place had once been a greenhouse. Perhaps it had not been all that different from the greenhouses the Mu built to cultivate plants and vegetables that still could not survive in the Nazcan climate. Maybe the Humans, too, had longed for lush, green places where people could gather to enjoy the fruits of nature and the joy of companionship.

But all he could see here now were parched red earth and piles of rubble.

He entered the ruined gazebo, then bent down to wipe the dirt of one of its benches. The red dust stained his white gloves. He paused to look at palms, then clapped his hands to dust them off.

He sat down, looking out in the direction from which he had come. The endless red desert stretched out before him. The suns dipped below the horizon, but the sky was full of gold, and dark, velvety purples—and that unfading red.

Jomy shut his eyes. More than ever, he longed to see a single yellow sun in a clear blue sky, instead of the twin stars in the red-brown haze of this beautiful but cursed planet.

"Terra..." The word slipped from his lips and vanished in the dry desert wind.

This place could never be Terra, no matter how hard they worked to shape this red planet into a more hospitable world. Still, he had hoped his people would be safe here. He had dreamed of them settling here and rejoiced when the first successful harvest came in. He had prayed for strong children to be born in this harsh land. The children he had seen grow up on the ship had granted his wish, creating new families. Jomy wanted these younger generations to inspire their elders with their resilience and courage.

Jomy—like so many others—had started to indulge in the idea of staying here, living out their long lives in peace until their bodies joined the red earth. They could leave to future generations the duty of reclaiming their rightful place beside the Humans.

But he could not forget his promise to Blue. Besides, if they could create life on this barren, desert world, how much more fruitful would their lives be when they reached their true homeland, Terra?

Jomy wavered between the possibilities, even as he felt the Mu grow complacent and careless on one side, and bitter and frustrated on the other. Jomy's own inaction and indecision did nothing to relieve the tension between those longing for Terra and those seeking a stable life here.

Yui's death was no accident—it was a warning. A decision would be made, one way or another.

Yet he still did not know down which path to take his people.

The blood-red dusk gave way to night. Lost in thought, Jomy did not feel the day's warmth seep from the stone and the earth, and the cold night breeze did not chill him. He felt numb, untouchable and far removed from everything.

Eventually he became dimly aware of someone approaching and a voice calling his name. He heard footsteps crunch across the rocky soil and a moment later, Leo appeared in the gazebo, flashlight in hand and a worried look on his face.

_Soldier Shin! There you are! What are you doing out here? _asked Leo.

Jomy didn't move. _Thinking, _he replied telepathically. His eyes felt dry and gritty, as if he had forgotten to blink this whole time. It was completely dark now, except for the bright beam of light from Leo's flashlight. Jomy rubbed his eyes.

Leo moved to Jomy's side and touched his shoulder. _It's late, Soldier. You've been out here for almost three hours._

Jomy coughed and cleared his throat. "I must've lost track of time," he mumbled, dusting off grains of sand from his lap.

_We should head back to the colony. Everyone is getting worried. _

But Jomy did not want to go back. He felt as fragile as the ancient glass lying in the dirt beneath his feet. He looked up at his friend. In the light, Leo's eyes glinted like the stars in the night sky above them.

"Sit with me, Leo," commanded Jomy.

Leo hesitated only a moment before carefully taking a seat beside Jomy on the narrow bench. He switched off the flashlight, and in the sudden darkness the stars came into full view through the broken roof of the gazebo.

_Aren't you cold, Soldier?_ asked Leo.

"No."

Jomy could not take his eyes off the myriad stars scattered across the jagged sky. Somewhere out there in the glittering sweep of the Milky Way was Terra. If he stayed here like this, unmoving for hours, he might be able to pick out which of those countless specks of light harbored that lost blue planet. Maybe it was nearby, in a system close enough for the Mu to maintain settlements on both Nazca and Terra. Perhaps he would never have to decide whether to leave or stay, whether to uproot half his people or to abandon them.

"Leo, was I wrong to bring us here, to Nazca?" Jomy asked after a little while, still transfixed by the night sky.

_Sometimes, _Leo said slowly, _there is no right or wrong. There is only what must be done._

"You sound like Soldier Blue."

_He taught me that everything happens for a reason._

"And what is the reason for this, for Yui's death, for everything?" The emotions he had kept at bay all evening welled up inside him. He jabbed a finger at the night sky. "What is the reason we're here, when Terra is out there?"

_I don't know. Sometimes the reasons don't make sense until much, much later._

"If at all," added Jomy, struggling to keep his feelings in check.

After a moment of silence, Leo spoke up again. _Soldier._

Jomy turned slightly to look at him, though he could barely see him in the dim light of the stars.

_You will make the right decision,_ Leo said. _You will choose what is best for us. _His thoughts conveyed how much faith Leo had in his Soldier.

His confidence startled Jomy.

Leo rose to his feet and offered his hand to Jomy. _Shall we head back, Soldier? _he asked in that oddly gentle tone he only used when he wanted Jomy to do something.

Seeing that it was useless to argue with Leo, Jomy took the proffered hand and stood up. His joints were stiff from the cold and the lack of movement, causing his left knee to buckle as he stood up. But Leo pulled him forward by the hand to keep him from falling and drew him close. Leo's body felt so warm—warm and alive—in the frigid night air.

_You're freezing, Soldier! _scolded Leo softly as he wrapped his arms around Jomy.

Jomy shut his eyes, glad for the shared body heat now that he realized just how cold he was from sitting outside so long. With his face pressed against Leo's chest, Jomy waited for the strength to return to his limbs and for the chill to leave his bones.

_**Is it like this  
In death's other kingdom  
Waking alone  
At the hour when we are  
Trembling with tenderness  
Lips that would kiss  
Form prayers to broken stone.**_

_You shouldn't go wandering off alone into the night like this, Soldier. _There was a pause, and then Leo added, _At least take me with you next time._

Jomy smiled to himself. "But you always know where to find me, no matter how far I roam."

Leo's arms tightened slightly around him.

They stayed like that a moment longer, but then Jomy finally pushed Leo away. The night wind stirred the Soldier's cape as he turned his gaze back up to the sky. Up there, somewhere, the Shangri-la orbited the planet, invisible among the stars.

"Leo, let's go back to the ship."

_The ship?_

"Yes."

_But weren't we going to spend the night at the colony?_

"No." Jomy began to walk away, and Leo hurriedly picked up the flashlight and turned it on as he followed after him.

_But why?_

Jomy brushed his bangs out his eyes. The light from Leo's flashlight danced uncertainly on the ground before him, but Jomy did not need the light. He knew where he was going now.

"I need to see Soldier Blue."


	4. Chapter 4: Physis

**IV**

_**The eyes are not here  
There are no eyes here  
In this valley of dying stars  
In this hollow valley  
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms**_

Physis was glad of her blindness, for it meant she could not see the torture taking place in front of her. She stood apart from the others as they began the deep mental probe of the strange man who crashed on Nazca and fought with Jomy.

She could not see him, but she sensed that the captive man was a great warrior—cold and cruel. And strong. She would not say it to anyone, but the strength of his will reminded her of the Soldiers.

As the mental probe continued, she could feel the man's suffering. He would not cave to the pain inflicted upon him--he was stronger than that. But the Mu would not stop, either; they had become strong enough to inflict the same torture they had once been subjected to themselves.

Physis clasped her hands together to stop their trembling and squeezed her sightless eyes shut. She feared that the probe would reveal what she had barely seen before the man fell unconscious—and Physis feared that the probe would turn up nothing at all. She thought that the Human carried within him something she thought belonged only to her—that gift that made her so valuable to the Mu

But he was no Mu; he was Human.

She wondered now—briefly—what she really was.

The probe deepened, and the mind of the unconscious man in the holding cell begrudgingly began to relinquish some of its secrets. She heard the song first, that familiar melody long forgotten, and then she dimly heard the others' exclamations as images from the Human's mind become clear: the Milky Way, the Solar System, and then Terra.

She couldn't see what they saw but she knew the truth: his heart held the same vision of Terra as she did. He heard the same song of Terra that she did. He carried in him her own dreams of that lost blue planet. For all their physical differences, this man was just like her. She was not unique, not special, not gifted. She was not a goddess. She was closer to this prisoner in the cell than anyone else she had ever encountered. Their memories were identical; their minds were the same.

But he was Human.

She dimly heard the comments from the doctor, from Jomy, from the captain as they observed the prisoner in their midst. Her heart pounded heavily in her chest as unsettling thoughts raced through her head.

Her image of Terra—artificial?

Her own memories—fake, implanted?

The Soldier shouted a command, urging the probe to go deeper, deep enough to cut through that sacred image of Terra and past the lies programmed into the prisoner's soul—the same lies that had led Blue to Physis, the same fiction that Physis had used to guide the Mu for decades.

A cold horror washed over her, and she shuddered. She felt the prisoner's pain now almost as intensely as if it were her own, but all she could do was add to his torment, probing him with her own telepathy to demand an explanation: _Why? Why do you know that song? Who are you? Why do you have the same memories as me?_

Only when Jomy cried out in rage and despair did she snap back to herself and abandon her inquisition.

When the interrogation of the prisoner ended, the young Soldier wept. Physis wished she could join him in his tears.

_**In this last of meeting places  
We grope together  
And avoid speech  
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river**_

Physis could not rest; the trauma of the interrogation she had witnessed would not leave her. She sought comfort and advice in her tarot cards, but her hands were unsteady and her intuition weak. The cards spoke only of great change—that Wheel of Fortune card constantly leapt into her hands—and in her mind she saw only the rapidly spinning wheel of fate. It provided her with little guidance, and no one else could tell her where to find the answers to her unspoken questions.

She finally abandoned the scattered cards on the table and carefully--without asking Alfred for help--made her way down the ship's corridors to the cell where the Human was being held.

If anyone could communicate with that cold, unbreakable man, it would be her. He would surely recognize their common nature, and perhaps be willing to speak to her of his origins, his mission.

She placed her hands on the glass walls of his cell and asked him to do the same, that she might show him her vision of Terra, to show him that she, if no one else aboard this ship, could understand him. But the moment she felt the faint warmth penetrating from the other side of the glass, she felt a thrill—would he show her his Terra, the same way she so often shared hers with Blue and Jomy? Would she know what it felt like to receive that vision instead of giving it to another? She felt a sudden longing to experience the joy of seeing that image of Terra in a mind other than her own.

The Human's mind touched hers, and for a split second, she questioned her judgment, but her doubts fell away as an unexpected warmth rushed over her. She felt as though she were submerged in warm, soothing water, and she sensed more than seeing blue-green of the life-giving liquid. It was all so familiar to her, and even the presence of the man on the other side of the glass was no longer strange to her. She wondered if they had connected their minds like this before, perhaps in another life.

But suddenly his mind pressed past her barriers, slipping inside her mind easier than any Human—any stranger—should. Gone was the memory of warm, familiar waters; instead, she felt a cold, metallic grip seize her heart as the Human forcefully made his demands directly into her soul.

He had compromised her heart and mind; she could not push him out. And in her confusion and shock, her thoughts betrayed her and gave him all the information he wanted to know.

She pushed herself away from the glass, but it was too late.

_**Sightless, unless  
The eyes reappear  
As the perpetual star  
Multifoliate rose  
Of death's twilight kingdom**_

Acrid smoke stung her nostrils, throat, and lungs. All around her was the searing heat of a hatred powerful enough to melt metal, but the hand gripping her like a vise was a colder than the almost lifeless body of the child she held in her arms. She and young Tony were the Human's captives now.

The man pushed her forward roughly, forcing her to be his shield and his guide as he made his escape.

Physis could only comply with his commands. She was terrified—terrified that Tony would die as she carried him around the ship, terrified that the Human would kill them both as soon as they reached the hangar, terrified that he would somehow find a way to destroy the entire ship.

She dared not call for help, but she prayed that Jomy would come to their rescue, somehow.

And then, deep down, she wished that Blue were here to save them as he always had.

But she knew she was alone now; she deserved to be abandoned for putting herself in this position. She would be glad to pay any price to make up for her inadvertent betrayal, but she asked only that the helpless, injured child she clutched to her chest would survive.

They arrived at the main hangar where most of the smaller spacecraft were housed. If he was going to kill them, it would be now. Physis had no doubt that the determined Human would kill her as soon as he no longer needed a hostage. Physis's life had once been saved by Blue from the clutches of the Humans; it was fitting that she would die here, in the cruel grip of a Human, after betraying Blue.

Suddenly a familiar voice cut through the air with such intensity, such pride, and such strength that even the Human stopped in his tracks. But the voice shook Physis to her core. "Soldier Blue? Is that really you?"

It was him. He was awake, and he was on his feet, preparing to attack the Human before he could escape. But Blue did not know of the vision the terrible Human carried within him. How would the former Soldier react if he knew that Physis, his goddess, was not so special? What would he say if he knew that she had something in common with her captor that she could never share with her beloved Blue?

Instinctively, unthinkingly, she raised a shield to block Blue's psychokinetic attack, saving the life of the man who had her same memories.

Blue's surprise reached her, and she immediately regretted her reflexive action.

And then she wondered how Blue's attack could have been so weak that someone like her could deflect it.

But there was no time for despair or reflection—the Human flung Tony away with all his mind, and Blue without hesitation dove for the comatose child, leaving Physis in the hard grip of her captor. His hands dug into her skin like nails as he dragged her into a small spacecraft that he would use to flee. If she went with him, she would die for certain, at his hands or at the hands of the Humans to whom he would deliver her.

She thought she had steeled herself to accept her fate, but knowing that Blue was awake again to see her betray him like this tore at her heart, and before she could stop herself, she cried out, "Blue! Soldier Blue!"

But there was nothing he could to save her. He was weak, and she had already rejected his attempt to free her from the hands of this Human.

As the Human dragged her into the spacecraft, she saw a vision of her tarot cards—the Wheel, spinning incessantly onward, and below it, the Tower, collapsing in flames—and she knew then that, as she had betrayed him, so must Blue betray her.

The door to the spacecraft slammed shut, and the vision of the crumbling tower and the raging fire vanished.

She had lost everything. She was no goddess, no spiritual guide to her people, no companion to the Soldier—she was nothing.

_**The hope only  
Of empty men.**_


	5. Chapter 5: The World

**V**

_**Between the idea  
And the reality  
Between the motion  
And the act  
Falls the Shadow**_

"Scan the colony area again!" barked Harley. "There must be some place on Nazca where our ships can still land!"

"Commencing area scan."

Harley tightened his grip on the armrests of his captain's chair on the bridge of the Shangri-la. On the screen before him, he saw Nazca; in his mind's eye, he saw Altamira.

He had seen the world end once before; he had prayed it would not happen again.

"Captain, the only possible landing area is the valley to the northwest."

"Send the Ghibli that just docked back down there, and inform the other ships in the air."

"Aye, sir."

Nazca was burning, and the Mu settlement was falling apart from the ground up. They needed to get as many people off the dying planet as they could, and Harley needed to get the two Soldiers back on board the ship as soon as possible.

He refused to stand by helplessly as the Humans tried to destroy everything again, but ge knew that the longer he waited here for the refugees from the planet to come in, the higher the odds that they would all be caught in the Megido's next attack. If he ordered the Shangri-la to warp away now, their chances of escape were significantly higher. But he could not give the order to flee from this battlefield.

He would not abandon his friends and comrades to the hellfire of Megido, as he had done on Altamira. The Mu had fought so hard and for so long to get to where they were now, and Captain Harley simply would not let the sacrifices of the past go to waste. He would wager the lives of all Mu in a bold bet that the Soldiers and the new Type Blue children would stop the Humans in time.

_Hurry up, Soldier, _he thought, thinking of both Blue and Jomy.

_**For Thine is the Kingdom**_

_**Between the conception  
And the creation  
Between the emotion  
And the response  
Falls the Shadow**_

Jomy watched in horror as the world he had built fell apart before his eyes.

He had ordered his people to descend to this planet to carve out a new existence. Here he had tried to give his people a respite from their endless trek through space. Here he had hoped to build a civilization that would someday be accepted as equal to that of the Humans. Here he had begun to lay the foundation for a peaceful future in this corner of the galaxy and a home to return to even after he made his way to Terra, wherever that blue planet lay.

Here, the first naturally conceived children in centuries had been born and raised, flourishing in the harsh climate along with the hardy crops that eventually took root in the rocky red soil. And here, for a brief moment, Jomy had found fulfillment.

But in the end, all his hopes and plans had merely brought death and destruction to the Mu. The land he had intended to make their new paradise had become their newest hell.

Never had Jomy felt such grief.

Never had he felt such rage.

But he was not done yet. He would find every last Mu and bring them up to the ship, one way or another. He would not give up, for he was the Soldier—the responsibility for these countless, precious lives lay in his hands as long as he had any life left in him.

_**Life is very long**_

_**Between the desire  
And the spasm  
Between the potency  
And the existence  
Between the essence  
And the descent  
Falls the Shadow**_

Blue knew he was still alive because the pounding of his heart told him he had not died yet. But the slick warmth of the blood seeping into his clothes told him he did not have much longer.

He had hoped to disable the Megido system and then return to the ship, but now he saw that it was impossible. The Megido's control console was out of reach; the Shangri-la was even farther. There was no escape; he could not go home again.

Without his headphones on, Blue could hear nothing, though he knew that Human commander was shouting questions and curses at him as kept shooting at Blue. But the pain from his wounds reminded him that he still had life in him—he could still achieve something with what was left of his pitiful existence. The tall, scowling Human towering before him fired his gun at Blue relentlessly, and it was all Blue could do to maintain a small shield to crouch behind so that he could dodge at least a few of those bullets hurtling at him. He clung to his last remaining strength like a wounded man leaning on his staff. He knew with a cold certainty that there was only one thing left for him to do: to stop this enormous, world-destroying weapon that was aimed at his people and all the dreams they had dared to realize on the red planet below.

He did not want to leave them.

But as darkness fell upon his failing eyes and the last of his energy drained from his body with each pulse of his ancient heart, he knew he had no choice but to go. The time had come.

Inhaling sharply, Blue dropped his shield and slammed his palms to the cold floor as he channeled all his power and all his love into the deadly machinery beneath him.

_**For Thine is the Kingdom**_

_**For Thine is  
Life is  
For Thine is**_

Physis sat in her chair aboard the Shangri-la, trembling. Even though she was far removed from its surface, she could feel Nazca's violent quaking as the planet's very core collapsed.

She had named this planet, and named many of the children who had been born there. She had foreseen the many possibilities inherent in this world, and she had hoped Jomy would lead them down the path to the ideal future. But as the wheel of fate turned and closed off some paths and unlocked others, she had begun to see the impending tragedy moving towards them like a shadow—vague, indistinct, but frightening.

Yet she had kept silent, unable to voice her fear, lest the unspeakable happen. She thought misfortune might still pass them by. She had hoped fate would not punish the Mu again, no matter her own personal transgressions.

But now it was too late—the world was ending. There was nothing she could say or do now to prevent it.

So she sat helplessly in her chair and clutched the old headphones Blue had left with her, praying that the man she loved with all her heart could stop the absolute destruction about to rain down upon them.

A chill came over her. The headphones fell from her grasp and clattered to the floor. Something had been abruptly ripped from her mind; something vital was being torn from her heart. She could not breathe. She could not think. But she knew.

Blue was gone. Whatever gift he had given her, too, was gone.

Engines roaring, the Shangri-la warped to safety, but Soldier Blue was forever lost, and nothing would be the same again.

Physis collapsed to the floor, clutching at her chest. Then she feebly reached for the fallen headphones, but they were just beyond her grasp.

_**This is the way the world ends  
This is the way the world ends  
This is the way the world ends  
Not with a bang but a whimper.**_

_**...**_

Author's note: I give my regards to T.S. Eliot and apologize for borrowing a big chunk of his poem "The Hollow Men." ;)_**  
**_


End file.
